Grand Challenges of Planetary Governance

In this timely book, leading scholar Oran Young reflects on the future of the global order. Developing new lenses through which to consider needs for governance arising on a global scale, Young investigates the grand challenges of the 21st century requiring the most urgent and sustained planetary responses: protecting the Earth’s climate system; controlling the eruption of pandemics; suppressing disruptive uses of cyberspace; and guiding the biotechnology revolution. Exploring how developments such as globalization, the rise of increasingly influential non-state actors, and the onset of the cyber age are eroding the institutional foundations of international society, this book considers the prospects for new forms of global order that differ in important ways from the familiar but increasingly problematic states system. Offering critical insights into the pressing need for institutional change to meet 21st century challenges, this book will prove beneficial to scholars working on matters involving governance on a global scale. Practitioners looking to connect their actions to broader analytic concerns will also find the book insightful.